the end of the world

capatul pamintului

i reached the end of the world. the emotion is at least as big as it was when i reached santiago. it rains but i start my walk again to the cabo to the pharo. as i walk the weather changes. it is great to have visibility in this place, finally i see the ocean, the monuments the pharo.. but i am still looking for a place for the messages.

i get some conchas, some field flowers and a nice calm place to make the small altar and burn the messages that used to give me so much energy. i find it hard, but i do it. i burn them and i wistle on the 4 corners of the world.

mission is over

good bye milky way

so their fate will be to reach cabo fisterra w me. i didn´t decide yet if i´ll leave in 1 or 2 days, i need first more info and inspiration.

anyway, my pilgrimage is over even if my mission didn´t finish yet. from now on i´ll take the bus and sleep in hotels.

thank you all so much. i felt you so close all this time and believe me i talked to you A LOT during my long hours on camino. your presence helped to see more, to feel more, to remember more, to enjoy every minute, not to get tired, not to give up, to have fun, to love what i´m doing

love you all

evdecamino

i think already how i´ll deliver the messages. it will be messas, but there are hundreds of people there all the time.

i´ll need the little angels that surrounded me all this time to help me again.

i will dedicate this last climb to ´les bebes´our kids. i wish them all to fly high, to keep their dreams, to have results soon enough not to get their dreams melted down. those who did not read yet the dreams of their hart i wish them inspiration and strength to find their dreams and to follow them.

i walked-climbed hard w no stop. i want all these so much.

i got it to the top, where i found a very small church (hermita?). the rope from the bell was hanging near the door. i rang the bells 3 times loud and clear, as i want this so much. god bless them all.

then i had a break and a breakfast. since then i walked mainly in eucaliptus forests. i guess haven has these forests too.

oh, i´ve heard about you.. he sais

he heard about me? i wonder..

did you walk w a norwegian girl’

yes, w gina, where is she?

we talked about her, when he saw her last .. and we both concluded she should be somewhere close. she is a great walker. w my pauses, my speed and taking out some days geting the bus, i assumed she should be close. 2 days later i waked up late, very late as i was sick that night. i took a breakfast and i left the village after 9, as i never did. after 3-4h of walk in a cafe bar i get sholder to sholder w gina. what a surprise.. we were both very happy to see each other again after 20 days. we had a great walk and talk on june 22 just the way we had on june 2nd when we celebrated the b-days of our sons. next day she left early and w her speed she might be already 1-2 days ahead of me.

this is for me a typical cabalistic camino story

if you want to get your compostella (the certificat) you should have a minimum of 100km and you might get started from here. a small town with many albques. mine is great, i enjoy it since midday. i write on a prety good computer which is sitting on a very old sewing machine. let me try to sew my words

the town is full of starters, i guess most of them are spaniards. compared w them those coming from St Jean PDP are intermediate to senior level. i belong to this level. but there are also the seniors (in the sense of experienced pilgrims) i would call them veterans. you could recognise them from the starters from the walk (they-we have funny walk because of the joint pains), from the feet and from the colour of the  face and hands. they-we got darker faces and hands as we could not cover them enough and protect from sun.

the veterans i met are mainly europeans, people coming after a loong march  from wiena, le puy (center france), paris, amsterdam, normandy. they startrted in april even march. we are talking here about more than 2000 km.

there are not too many people on the road left to marche for more than 2 weeks. i feel more and more like a professional pilgrim.

 who are the pilgrims? people coming from everywhere, from all continents. most of them are europeans, but i met people from africa, asia, australia and new zeeland, n america and s america as well. yes they are a minority but they are a consistant presence. i met a couple from quebec w a baby boy of 6 months, the happiest baby i´ve ever seen. they stay in albqs but also in a tent. they started in st jean, like myself, and they told me the baby adjusted very well. you can tell..

i´ve met 3 young spaniards walking w their dogs, an adult and a puppy. the puppy gets tired soon so they carry him on the top of their luggage where he sits happy and in comfort. they all sleep in a tiny tent.

i´ve met an old couple traveling w their old dog. they take many breaks during the hot day and feed the dog and give him lots of water. i don´t know where they sleep.

in the first part of my trip the predominat pilgrims were french. i had their songs in my head all time. in the second part… spaniards and many germans and italians. my tunes changed from german simphonies to simple roumanian songs

´´printre muntzi si printre vai trece o caruta

dintre toate fetele tu esti mai dragutza´´

yes, i sing a lot, loud or not, but mainly loud..

i jump on stones… boing, boing….and i sing.

so back to sarria.. if you want to get your compostella you might start from here…

small town where there are many albques and a nice small church where most of the representations are women, and the music is sweet and devine, with lots of feminine voices. i visited it, i was very touched and i thought:

thank you god for being a woman

thank you god for being a mother

i started early in the morning . the night was more bad than good as i had the chance to have in my room someone snoring badly. poor her, what could she do? i think she knew as she always had a scared look.

the morning was very misty i could not see too far. we started the hike, it was a tough slope, but i´m fine climbing. i was with very high expectations and very unpatiant to reach the cross. i was climbing for more than 1h thinking to all of us, and what i want for my prayer. in front of me an italian couple were much too noise for that place. i knew i was close, so how was i going to pray with all their noise.

i saw it.. it was big and majestic. becase of the mist i saw only the top at the beginning. i get closer, and closer….. wait…

it was an huge electric post… the noise that i thought would be a river in front of me was the noise from the electrical wires.

well, i kept going and i was going up, son was going up too, mist started to go down and now, yes, the mountains were majestic, the landscape was wonderful, soon i reached finally the cross.

this is it? so small? with a carretera at 5m? lots of garbage all around? where is my mistique cross? people were taking pictures. cars were parking for a short stop and than go further. noise, pollution, nothing to invite you for a deep thought.

i left my rock there but i postponed my prayer for a better place which i found soon after i left the cross. i did my best, but the new civilisation smtimes stays in our way. my wish was for all of us to have a lighter heart. maybe we can

in the mountains civilisation is coming slowly. it´s hard to find computers

pls don´t worry from now on. i also need a bit of silence.

i might get back to my blog in compostella only.

yesterday though i had an encounter. a ´turma´ (in ro, herd in engl?) of more than 200 sheep and goats was crossing our trail. i was alone at that time as i started to be very slow after mid day because of the heat and the pains in my joints, mainly heels. no shepherd around, only DOGS, huge dogs taking care of all those animals. my hope was that they know pilgrims and they are smart enough not to see us as a danger for their herd. i walked slowly watching them. they were cool, calm, but allert. actually i could say that they looked very professional. i was impressed. sheep and goats had a really dummy look. they were also very submissive to the dogs

i was excited about the event and i kept going. i noticed some plants that had a great smell. i think it is myrt. the smell reminded me of churches. i reach a T intersection with no signals. miny, miny, many, mo.. i take it to the left. soon the trail was going up. no, no, my trail should go down. i get back to the T intersct and i take right. now it looks good for a while, but in about 10mins the trail is all covered by grass. ok, it´s time to accept that i was lost again. nobody around, but really nobody, just eagles on the sky flying almost over me. am i going to die here?

focus evi, get back on trail until you find the signs again.

it was late in the afternoon, i was damn tired, but i forgot about pains and took the trail back. back to the herd which didn´t move too much, back to the dogs who couldn´t care less. i see on another slope (so another mtn) some pilgrims. no way for me to fly there over the valley so keep going step by step on the missleading trail… it took me more than 1h to get back to my camino. i arrived in mulinaseca exhausted.